Material handling systems used in hospitals and industrial buildings may utilize automatic guided vehicles to transport material and supply carts from location to location within the building. In the case of multistory structures, these vehicles may have to be transported by elevators between different levels of the building. Particularly in the case of medical facilities, certain elevators may be dedicated solely to transport of these vehicles between floors. Where buildings were designed to accommodate such material handling systems which include dedicated elevators, the elevators are sized as small as possible, while allowing accommodation of the automatic guided vehicle together with a material and supply cart, to minimize floor area and building volume sacrificed to accommodate the elevator shafts. When an automatic guided vehicle experiences a power or other system failures while being transported from floor to floor on an elevator, it may become stranded in the elevator. In such circumstances, removal of the vehicle can be very difficult because of the lack of space about the vehicle in the elevator in which to work in effecting a rescue.